World Bulletin / News Desk

Iraqi Ezidi militia forces found a mass grave on Monday which contained the bodies of 30 Ezidis in northeastern Sinjar, near Mosul, northern Iraq, according to an Ezidi activist.

"A group of Ezidi militia forces has found a mass grave of 30 Ezidis, including the corpses of women and children in a village located 40 miles from the northeastern town of Sinjar," human rights Ezidi activist Lokman Mirzo told The Anadolu Agency.

He confirmed that the region was surrounded by Kurdish peshmerga forces.

The Ezidi population is estimated at 600,000 and a number of Ezidi minority groups live in Turkey, Syria, Iran, Georgia and Armenia.

Ongoing battles between ISIS and Iraqi security forces left 51 militants dead in Anbar and Saladin provinces, the Iraqi Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

Iraq has been gripped by a security vacuum since June, when ISIS stormed the northern province of Mosul and declared what it called a caliphate in Iraq and Syria.